As a business owner, you know how important having a solid online presence is.
Your web page is often the first contact between you and your potential customers, so you want to ensure it represents your business in the best light possible.
To do that, it’s crucial to avoid common web design mistakes that discourage visitors from doing business with you.
As much as possible, you would like to have a responsive website…
In this blog post, we will discuss seven of the most common web design mistakes and how to fix each.
Mistake #1: Making your website too busy
When it comes to web design, less is definitely more.
You want your website to be easy for visitors to navigate and find the information they’re looking for without being bombarded with too many visuals or overwhelming amounts of text.
If your website looks cluttered and chaotic, it will be off-putting for visitors and make them click away quickly.
Simple fix: Avoid this web design mistake using clean lines, simple fonts, and ample white space.
Make sure you only include essential information on each page.
Mistake #2: Not optimizing for mobile
Mobile devices generated 58.99% of global website traffic, consistently hovering around the 50% mark since the beginning of 2017.
It shows that people use their mobile to browse the internet more than ever.
So if your website isn’t optimized for mobile, you’re missing out on a considerable portion of mobile users who are also your potential customer base.
The good news is that making your website mobile-friendly is relatively easy.
Simple fix: If you’re using a content management system (CMS) like WordPress, plenty of themes and plugins will automatically optimize your site for mobile.
Alternatively, you can hire web designers to create a custom responsive design for your site…
But also make sure it’s going to be a high-converting one.
Whichever route you choose, just make sure your website looks great and is easy to navigate on both desktop and mobile devices.
Mistake #3: Creating custom fonts that are difficult to read
One of the most common web design mistakes is not making sure custom fonts are readable.
As a website owner, it’s a no-brainer that you want your website to look unique.
But don’t forget to make it crystal clear for your target customers.
Which is why creating custom fonts is a good way to make your site stand out.
And guess what? They’ll do more harm than good if they’re difficult to read.
Visitors who can’t understand your content will not stick around for long.
Simple fix: It’s pretty straightforward- use fonts that are easy to read.
Your best bet is to stick with common fonts available on most devices.
Some good examples include Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, and Times New Roman.
Mistake #4: Not using enough white space
White or negative space is the area around your website’s content.
It’s essential to use enough white space in your design so that each element has room to breathe and visitors don’t feel overwhelmed.
If there’s much going on, it will be difficult for website visitors to focus on one thing.
Simple fix: Balance the amount of white space with the content on each page.
A good rule of thumb is to use more on your landing page, and less as visitors move further into your site.
Mistake #5: Lack of CTA buttons
Your website may be well-designed and fast-loading, but if it doesn’t have clear call-to-action (CTA) buttons, visitors may not know what action you want them to take next.
This is one of the most common web design mistakes that is often overlooked.
You see, every page on your website should have at least one CTA button that tells visitors what they should do next.
Whether subscribing to your newsletter, joining your loyalty program, or making a purchase.
There’s a good chance your web visitors will just abandon your site without taking any action if there are no strong call-to-action buttons.
Simple fix: Make sure your CTA buttons are visible and could stand out from the rest of the content on the page.
You can use contrasting colours, or adding an arrow or other visual cue can help draw attention to them.
Keep the website copy or text brief something like “Buy Now,” “Sign Up,” or “Learn More” is usually sufficient.
If you want visitors to take multiple actions on your site, use multiple CTA buttons; just make sure they’re not so close together that visitors get confused about which one they’re supposed to click on.
Mistake #6: Putting Irrelevant Images
Another one of the many web design mistakes by many business owners who are starting out is that they think they need to include images on every page of their website.
Worse? A bunch of those are low-quality images…
You see, just because you have a bunch of images doesn’t mean you should use them all.
A good web designer won’t let you use too many ugly images because it hurt your website’s performance.
Not only will it take longer for your pages to load, but it can also make your site look cluttered and unprofessional.
Simple fix: Only use images relevant to the content on each page and ensure they’re compressed, so they don’t slow down your site.
If you’re unsure what size or resolution you should be using, there are plenty of free online image optimizers that can help, such as Kraken.io and TinyPNG.
Mistake #7: Not testing your website on different browsers and devices
Just because your website looks great on Google Chrome doesn’t mean it will look the same on other browsers.
And with more people using mobile devices to browse the web, it’sensuring your site is responsive and looks good on all screen sizes is essential.
Simple fix: The best way to do this is to test your website on as many browsers and devices as possible.
If you don’t have access to them, you can use free online tools like BrowserStack or MobileTest to test how your site looks on different browsers and devices.
This will help ensure your website looks its best for all visitors.
It’s A Wrap
There you have it!!
We’ve just gone over seven of the most common web design mistakes to avoid that could be harming your web pages.
Some are easy to fix, while others are simple and require more time and effort.
But once you’ve made the necessary changes, you should see a significant improvement in your website’s performance.
It may be in search engines giving you a better ranking, increasing traffic, or even more conversions.
Do you have any questions or need help with making changes to your website?
Feel free to reach out.
In fact, if you’d like us to audit your website (including your competitors) for FREE, then we recommend you book a complimentary call with us.
Our team would be happy to lend a helping hand.
Anyway, that’s it for this blog post!
Let us know in the comments if you found this helpful.
You can also share it with your network and help someone else out. 🙂
